The Shalom Catholic Community was founded on 9th July 1982, after that its founder, Moysés Louro de Azevedo Filho, had offered his life and youth to take Christ and the Catholic Church to those who were distant, specially, the youth.
On 30th June 1980, Pope John Paul II arrived in Brazil for his first visit of the country. The pontiff visits 13 cities and takes part in the opening of the X International Eucharistic Congress in Fortaleza (CE). Moysés Azevedo, when he was 20 years old, was chosen by the Archbishop from Fortaleza, Dom Aloísio Lorsheider, to give a gift to the Pope in the name of the Archdiocese’s youth. Then, Moysés started to pray asking God what he should offer to the Pope and, on the 9th of July, he gives John Paul II a letter, in which he puts himself in God’s and in the Church’s hands, to evangelize the youth.
Exactly 2 years after the meeting with the pontiff, the first Shalom Catholic Evangelization Centre, a coffee house and a bookstore were opened, where the mission was to announce God’s love to the people who was there to have a meal, and there they could search for advising, help and comfort.
Everything happened without future pretensions of founding anything, but in the reception of God’s will during the prayers. In 1983, the first experiences in the communitarian life had initiated. The evangelized youth started to take part in the praying groups, which were formed. Lots of them started to serve more intensely, thus, integrating the first “engaged” group, the seed of the Covenant Community. In 1985, in front of the Lord’s Altar, Moysés and other four teenagers made their promises as the first consecrated members in the Life Community. After one year, the co-founder, Maria Emmir Nogueira, entered the Life’s Community. She was present in the Community since its beginning, helping the organization in accordance with the manifestation of God’s will.
The prayer groups multiplied, the evangelization works, formation and human promotion got intensified, vocations arose and bishops asked for Shalom’s houses in their dioceses. In 1995, through the strong interference by the divine’s providence, the Community’s Statutes started to be prepared. On 17 of February (in 1995), the elaboration was interrupted because of the sudden death of the Life’s Community’s missionary Ronaldo Pereira, aged 24, in an traffic accident. In the following year, the Statutes started to be done again.
In 1998, the archbishop from Fortaleza, Dom Cláudio Hummes, assigned a canonical recognizing decree of Shalom, at diocesan level. The Pontifical Recognition was decreed in 2007, by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, an institution linked to the Holy See, which approves the Statutes in an experimental character. On 22 February 2012, by the end of the period ad experimentum, the Holy See confirms the recognition of Shalom Catholic Community as a private international faithful association and definitely approves its Statutes.
The Community has missions into dioceses in many countries and it is growing more and more, fulfilling the mission to evangelize and to form God’s sons and daughters.